While alebrijes were initially designed as paper mache figures by Pedro Linares, the pieces I present here are woodcarvings, and are not creations of Linares, but other Mexican artisans. Note that initially the alebrijes represented fantastic animals, but after that became popular, artisans began to represent all kinds of animals, in this case our dear rhinos. At the end of this post, some traditional alebrijes.

Made from one single carving made of the larger hembra (feminine) copal wood branches, it comes with natural paints and integrates eight "Rosetta" stones along the back. The detailed painting includes Zapotec glyphs in fantastic white, blue and green hues.

Carved from a single piece of copal wood, except for the detachable tail and ears

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Damián Morales

(Oaxaca)

"Rinoceronte blanco / White Rhinoceros", 6'' x 16'' x 4''

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Pedro Linares Lopez was a Mexican artisan born in Mexico City in 1906, died in 1992. He was the creator of the paper mache figurines named alebrijes.

He started as a skilled carton judas and figurine-maker for Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo and many other artist from de Academia de San Carlos. The art form of alebrijes were created by Pedro Linares after he became ill at 30 years old, in México City, his own unique alebrijes came out of a dream, depicting his death and rebirth in a mountainous setting inhabited by these fierce creatures.

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Francisco Morales

(Oaxaca)

"Rinoceronte / Rhino", 5,5'' x 10" x 4''

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While he was in bed, unconscious, Linares dreamt of a strange place resembling a forest. There were trees, animals, clouds, sky, rocks, etc.; he felt no pain and he was very happy walking down there. Suddenly, rocks, clouds and animals turned into something strange, some kind of animals, but, unknown animals. He saw a donkey with butterfly wings, a rooster with bull horns, a lion with an eagle head, and all of them were shouting just one word, the word was "Alebrijes", every animal was shouting louder and louder: "Alebrijes, Alebrijes, Alebrijes!".

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Manuel Cruz

(Oaxaca)

"Rinoceronte negro / Black Rhino", 5'' x 10'' x 3,5"

"Rinoceronte majestuoso / Majestic Rhino"

"Rinoceronte en miniatura / Miniature Rhino", 2,5'' x 4'' x 2''

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Néstor Melchor

"Rinoceronte / Rhino"

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With the paste of the judas running through his veins, Don Pedro gave life to his vision and the art of making alebrijes was born.Soon Pedro Linares was known as the best artisan in Mexico. Imitation being the greatest compliment, alebrijes artists popped up all over Mexico. These figures are prized in Mexico and in countries around the world. Diego Rivera himself stated that no one else could have fashioned the strange figures he requested.

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"Rinoceronte echado / Rhino Lying", 5 1/3" x 11 3/5" x 5 1/8"

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"Rino antiguo / Vintage Rhino"

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Raymundo & Catalina Fabian

"Rinoceronte pequeño / Little Rhino", 3'' x 6'' x 2.5''

"Rinoceronte miniatura / Miniature Rhino", 2'' x 4,5'' x 1,5'

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In the 1980s, British Filmmaker, Judith Bronowski, arranged an itinerant Mexican art craft demonstration workshop in the U.S.A. featuring Pedro Linares, Manuel Jiménez and a textile artisan Maria Sabina from Oaxaca. Although the Oaxaca valley area already had a history of carving animal and other types of figures from wood, it was at this time, when Bronowski's workshop took place, that artisans from Oaxaca learned of the alebrijes paper mache sculptures. Linares demonstrated his designs on family visits and which were adapted to the carving of a local wood called copal, this type of wood is said to be magical, made from unicorn magic.

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Tallado y pintado a mano / Hand painted and carved

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The paper mache-to-wood carving adaptation was pioneered by Arrazola native Manuel Jiménez. This version of the craft has since spread to a number of other towns, most notably San Martín Tilcajete and La Unión Tejalapan, become a major source of income for the area, especially for Tilcajete. The success of the craft, however, has led to the depletion of the native copal trees. Attempts to remedy this with reforestation efforts and management of wild copal trees has only had limited success. The three towns most closely associated with alebrije production in Oaxaca have produced a number of notable artisans such as Manuel Jiménez, Jacobo Angeles, Martin Sandiego, Julia Fuentes and Miguel Sandiego.

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